Jun 23 Pork Noodle Naito | ポークヌードル内藤

Style: Jiro StyleBowl to Crush: Giro Ramen | 偽郎ラーメン

The menu here changes entirely from lunch to dinner, as does the shop name. At lunch it's called Anaya, and after dark it becomes Pork Noodle Naito. We find Pork Noodle Naito's menu more inspiring. The specialty at night is giro ramen, or Jiro-style ramen: thick, chewy noodles, beansprouts and globs of pork back fat in a shoyu-tonkotsu soup. The Jiro-style ramen here is thoroughly satisfying – better than at most of the actual Jiro Ramen shops, in fact.

Anaya used to be owned by Onozato-san, the master of Rabo, a well-respected shop in Nishi Shinjuku. Onozato-san would run the lunch shift, and Kokubun-san worked the dinner and nighttime hours. Kokubun-san recently took full ownership and now prepares every bowl himself, including making the noodles every morning. He's expanded the menu slightly, adding a shio ramen and green curry ramen. The fact that Kokubun-san is preparing all of these diverse dishes himself – at a high level, no less – is pretty remarkable. He closes the shop at 11pm, giving him just enough time to clean up and catch the last train back to his home in Chiba, a full two hours away. Beast.